Dictators and Their Secret Police: Causes of Repression in Cold War Asia

Why are some dictatorships much more violent toward civilians than others? This presentation seeks to answer that question by examining the origins and operation of secret police organizations in Taiwan, South Korea, and the Philippines during the Cold War. The talk explores a fundamental paradox of authoritarian government: that dictators cannot protect themselves from the threat of a coup without making themselves more vulnerable to a popular uprising, and vice versa. Coup-proofing requires one kind of internal security apparatus, while managing popular unrest requires another. Under the latter, citizens lose their liberty, but under the former, they are more likely to lose their lives.